Trump has word of caution for Israel

Days after Israel attacked Qatar in an airstrike targeting Hamas leaders, US President Donald Trump made careful remarks Sunday as Washington’s two powerful Middle Eastern allies face a worsening rift.

“Qatar has been a very great ally. Israel and everyone else, we have to be careful. When we attack people, we have to be careful,” Trump told reporters.

Trump initially rebuked Israel over Tuesday’s unprecedented strike on Doha, where negotiators from Israel and Hamas have been working to end the war in Gaza.

The attack has prompted Arab and Muslim leaders — including Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas — to gather for a show of solidarity in Doha, where Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani urged the world to “stop using double standards” and hold Israel to account.

Israel’s strike on the Gulf country’s capital killed five Hamas members and a Qatari security officer.

Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the region.

Meanwhile Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.

Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the militant group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called the last bastion of the militant Palestinian group.

Hamas’ political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.

Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages still held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and rebuild the coastal strip. Only 20 are believed to be alive.

“What’s happened has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel, where he will stay until Tuesday.

Once there, Rubio visited the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem. He was expected to hold talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Western Wall visit was “reaffirming America’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital,” according to a statement from the State Department.

In late 2017, during his first term as president, Donald Trump formally recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and subsequently moved the US embassy there from Tel Aviv.